nothing new being built, the combustioneer model 77 and stokermatic equivalent can be found from time to time used and often in good condtion. then just get yourself a truckload of low ash pea stoker. these underfeed stoves burn anthracite just fine too as well as pellets.

I'm not completely sure but a off the shelf furnace or stoker stove for Bit coal are not readily available, check with Peasefeedandcoal.com, Wyoming, I think, or Coalandheat.com, Alaska. I don't think either has a stoker stove for Bit

EFM did some nice test with Bit coal, worked good, I don't think he sells a stoker stove, although he has a stoker furnace.

Liesure line has a dealer in Wyoming, ccant@wyoming.com those units probalby get Bit run through them.

I'd like to try some in a Keystoker, I think it would work.

Again not sure but most Bit is sold in the 7/8" up to 1 1/2" size, and these stoker stoves like Pea and Barley sizes, maybe there is a Bit dealer with smaller sizes down there.

I'm sort of out of the loop, being in Alaska, getting tempted to buy a used stoker stove to experiment with, I think it will need to come from anthricite country.

Please Forum members prove me wrong.

Last edited by Short Bus on Sat Oct 23, 2010 6:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Short Bus wrote:I'm not completely sure but a off the shelf furnace or stoker stove for Bit coal are not readily available, check with Peasefeedandcoal.com, Wyoming, I think, or Coalandheat.com, Alaska. I don't think either has a stoker stove for Bit

EFM did some nice test with Bit coal, worked good, I don't think he sells a stoker stove, although he has an stoker furnace.

Liesure line has a dealer in Wyoming, ccant@wyoming.com those units probalby get Bit run through them.

I'd like to try some in a Keystoker, I think it would work.

Again not sure but most Bit is sold in the 7/8" up to 1 1/2" size, and these stoker stoves like Pea and Barley sizes, maybe there is a Bit dealer with smaller sizes down there.

I'm sort of out of the loop, being in Alaska, getting tempted to buy a used stoker stove to experiment with, I think it will need to come from anthricite country.

I don't know of anyone making small coal furnaces designed for bituminous stoker coal either. There are a couple companies making stoker/boilers that use bituminous stoker coal but they are quite large/expensive.

There is a stokermatic for sale for 100$ and a combustioneer (just the stoker unit only) for 100$ out here but these are no where near you

The Bit stoker stove market is not serviced with a off the shelf, dealer network serviced unit, could be Bit in the residence is just to dusty, coal and ash. Certainly no one is banging a gong trying to get you to buy one. Just the oposite of Liesure line, Keystoker and Harmon.

Bit coal works just fine in the home, and in a stoker performs no differently than anthracite in regards to ash/dust/mess. In fact good eastern bituminous coal can have higher btu's and less ash than most anthracite. One of the main reasons that you see anthracite stoves still in production and the market doing fairly well for home heating is simply because anthracite is only competative in home heating. The bit coal mining companies don't like to waste their time and money producing nice, uniform sizes of coal that are only good for home heating - the market is just too small for the trouble. A large part of the trouble in finding good bit stokers is the difficulty in finding properly sized bit coal with the performance requirements that home heating requires. (low ash, low coke buton, high fsi, minimum of fines etc. ) It can be done, but go to any anthracite supplier and you'll find a range of properly sized anthracite and precisely because they sell it for the purpose of home heating, you know it will roughly be of the quality necessary to burn decently well in your appliance; it's not like going to many bituminous suppliers that are loading unit trains and dozens of trucks an hour and picking up a few tons they set aside for the locals that heat with it - the exact specs of the coal? sometimes its anyone's guess how well it will work, it will burn, but for home heating how well?? The reason for the lack of bituminous specific appliances for the home is mostly due to the difficulty in finding a fuel supplier that has everything you need.

Berlin wrote:Bit coal works just fine in the home, and in a stoker performs no differently than anthracite in regards to ash/dust/mess. In fact good eastern bituminous coal can have higher btu's and less ash than most anthracite. One of the main reasons that you see anthracite stoves still in production and the market doing fairly well for home heating is simply because anthracite is only competative in home heating. The bit coal mining companies don't like to waste their time and money producing nice, uniform sizes of coal that are only good for home heating - the market is just too small for the trouble. A large part of the trouble in finding good bit stokers is the difficulty in finding properly sized bit coal with the performance requirements that home heating requires. (low ash, low coke buton, high fsi, minimum of fines etc. ) It can be done, but go to any anthracite supplier and you'll find a range of properly sized anthracite and precisely because they sell it for the purpose of home heating, you know it will roughly be of the quality necessary to burn decently well in your appliance; it's not like going to many bituminous suppliers that are loading unit trains and dozens of trucks an hour and picking up a few tons they set aside for the locals that heat with it - the exact specs of the coal? sometimes its anyone's guess how well it will work, it will burn, but for home heating how well?? The reason for the lack of bituminous specific appliances for the home is mostly due to the difficulty in finding a fuel supplier that has everything you need.

I agree totally. Bituminous is all anybody uses back home. Anthracite is unheard of. When I lived in East Tennessee, in Knoxville; I had 7 different dealers to choose from and they all had basically two sizes of coal. Stoker coal, dry or oiled and lump coal which came in sizes anywhere from small pieces to small boulder sized lumps. All the dealers told you where the coal came from and all had spec sheets with the characteristics of the coal they were selling. In fact a lot of the good Kentucky coal is better in quality than a lot of the Anthracite you get here. Rich Mountain coal for example, rendered over 14,000 BTU's per pound with less than 1% Sulfur and 2% ash. I bought that for $40 dollars a ton. This was back in the late 1980's, early 1990's. I'm sure it is not much more expensive now. If I could get that coal here at the same price that I got it back home. That's what I would be burning in the Base Burner right now.